Purify Your Gaze

From November 22nd through December 10th, 2010 Imancipate, an organization exclusively working with Muslims struggling with sexual addictions, will partner with ICNA and other national Muslim organizations and influential Muslim individuals within the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to shed light on a silent, shameful addiction affecting tens of thousands of Muslims and their families.

Pornography addiction is a psychological dependence upon pornography, characterized by compulsive reading, viewing and obsessing about pornography to the detriment of a person’s well being and affecting all areas of his or her life. It is usually coupled with other manifestations of sexual compulsive behaviors, and, like other addictions, can worsen without treatment.

Wide availability of and easy access to pornography and anonymity of the Internet have added to the problem, where an addict can spend hours searching the Internet for the newest or most hardcore pornographic material.

Pornography addiction been a growing problem within the Muslim community; this addiction does not discriminate based on the length of your beard, how observant a Muslim you are, or whether or not you pray five times a day.

ICNA encourages and supports its members who may be affected directly by pornography addiction to learn more about proactive measures they can take to improve their situations.

If you are currently struggling with pornography addiction or other sexual behaviors, or are the spouse of an individual with this struggle, an anonymous online survey has been put together to compile statistics and measure some of the problems and trends amongst Muslims.